Since that frisky little lamp wanted to play ball in Luxo Jr., the studio known as Pixar has become a powerhouse in the world of computer animation. After releasing their first feature-length film Toy Story twenty years ago, the studio has gone on to release a streak of acclaimed films that lasted up until the ill-received Cars 2 in 2011. Since that point, the studio seems to have had something to prove and a magic to recapture but after accomplishing that feat this July with the studio's form reclaiming emotionally charged masterpiece Inside Out, our eyes are on Pixar's second 2015 feature (and sixteenth feature film) The Good Dinosaur, which has had an overdue arrival to the big screen to say the least. So as the film is on the horizon, we at STARBURST tell you the story of The Good Dinosaur that wanted to be more than good it wanted to be great!
The official plot for the film is actually a quite sweet, if pretty standard sounding, tale of man (or rather boy) and beast in harmony. Though knowing the guys and gals at Pixar, there will be more going on here than meets the reptilian eye. The film is set in an alternate world where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs never hit the Earth. The Jurassic star of the film is a young Apatosaurus called Arlo (voiced by 13-year-old actor Raymond Ochoa).
Arlo is a friendly young dinosaur who is no stranger to loss, but he is swept away by a river and stranded from his remaining family. As Arlo tries to find his way home to the Clawed-Tooth Mountains, he strikes an unlikely friendship with a human cave boy who he names Spot (Jack Bright).
Now reading this plot summary, you could be forgiven for thinking of the possible similarities with the likes of Ice Age but The Good Dinosaur is likely to be a far different beast.
However, it seems almost ironic that a film that looks so friendly and sounds so unassuming (director Peter Sohn has suggested the title is deceptively simple) has faced so many setbacks in arriving to the big screen. Indeed, the story of The Good Dinosaur's production setbacks has been discussed more than the visually vibrant onscreen tale of boy and beast.
The egg that was the premise actually hatched way back in 1964, when the film's original director Bob Peterson (more on that later) visited the New York World's Fair and was wowed by the animatronic dinosaur exhibition as a boy. And as we have become accustomed to, Pixar is good at making dreams a reality, but not since the likes of The Black Cauldron has a Disney-backed animated feature faced such a problematic journey to the big screen.
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